11/11/2019
In bestseller Johansen and son’s riveting seventh Kendra Michaels novel (after 2018’s Double Blind), FBI consultant Kendra, who has honed a keen sense of observation from years of blindness she experienced as a child, works on a double murder case at a school she once attended, Woodward Academy for the Physically Disabled, in Oceanside, Calif. Kendra, who knew the victims, groundskeeper Ronald Kim and survival skills teacher Elaine Wessler, can’t understand who would want to kill them or why. The clues she uncovers with the aid of the FBI lead her to Elaine’s ex-husband’s apartment building, where she finds the ex-husband on the roof with his throat slit—and eludes the man’s possible killers with the help of a friend who arrives at the building in the nick of time. The danger rises as Adam Lynch, a black ops specialist, joins Kendra in her quest for Elaine and Ronald’s killers. The authors pepper the twisty plot with plenty of red herrings. Suspense fans are in for a treat. Agent: Andrea Cirillo, Jane Rotrosen Agency (Jan.)
2019-10-14
Sparks fly as a woman with extraordinary abilities fights her attraction to a dangerous freelance consultant.
Dr. Kendra Michaels has worked with former FBI Agent Adam Lynch before (Double Blind, 2018), but she's furious with him for getting her tossed out of Afghanistan after she sustained a minor wound while trying to root out corruption. Kendra, who was blind until an experimental operation restored her sight at 20, has highly developed senses of smell, hearing, and spatial awareness that she's used to help the FBI and CIA in many difficult cases. Now, as she returns to the U.S., they have another one she can't resist investigating. Elaine Wessler and Ronald Kim, both staff members at her old school, the Woodward Academy for the Physically Disabled in Oceanside, California, have been found murdered for no apparent reason, and FBI Special Agent Michael Griffin is anxious to use her skills and inside knowledge. Elaine had been fostering an unusual guide dog, Harley, who's had problems adjusting since the child he was working with was killed in a gas-main explosion. Now that Elaine is gone, his unearthly howls are upsetting the students. Kendra talks her best friend, Olivia, who's blind, into sharing custody of Harley until they can find him the right home. Meanwhile, she turns up clues the FBI team missed and is rewarded for her efforts with a bomb planted in her car. It turns out to be fake, but it's still a potent warning to walk away. Returning from Afghanistan to help Kendra, Lynch finds her still angry with him and intent on resisting his charms. Her friend Jessie Mercado, a private eye, turns up to help extricate her from a dangerous situation and sticks around to join the hunt for the killers. It will take all of them, including Harley, to solve the violent, complex case and get the school Kendra loves back on track.
Mystery, danger, and sexual tension abound in an action-packed thriller that breaks plenty of heads but no new ground.
